


Apologies on a Promenade

by SecondStarfall (beantiger)



Series: The Second Starfall Stories [43]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Apologies, Fairy Tale Elements, Fairy Tale Style, Fantasy, Female Friendship, Flash Fic, Gen, Medieval, Memories, Original Character(s), Originally Posted Elsewhere, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Reunions, Scars, Singing, Soldiers, Sweet, Veterans, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-01
Updated: 2020-06-01
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:20:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24481180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beantiger/pseuds/SecondStarfall
Summary: So Marlesse wept, openly, loudly, there on the promenade. She wept until she could not breathe, until her consciousness had gone blank with everything except terrible wonder.***A veteran reunites with a long-lost friend.
Series: The Second Starfall Stories [43]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1582975
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	Apologies on a Promenade

**Author's Note:**

> This is a version of the original Twitterfic, same title, posted over at my now-deactivated personal account in April 2020. It has been given minor edits for consistency with other stories and readability on AO3. ❤️
> 
>  **SUGGESTED REREADING:** Any of the [Marlesse tales.](https://archiveofourown.org/tags/Marlesse%20de%20la%20Mer*s*the%20Chief%20Guard/works) Also, any of the [Kirra tales.](https://archiveofourown.org/tags/Kirra%20Lattar*s*the%20Witch-heir/works) For reasons.
> 
> ✨ [[see the full SecStar timeline](https://secondstarfall.com/index.php/Official_Timeline) | [check out the SecStar wiki](https://secondstarfall.com/)] ✨

This is a story about memory.

Once, the chief of the Althussian royal guard went into town by herself to pick up lavender soap for her love back at Quellheart Keep. She—the chief—was mulling on the funds her betrothed had given her when she suddenly heard a familiar song downriver:

_“Should an arrow pierce me through,_  
_Tuck my bones in the moth-wing throne_  
_And I’ll return to you, to you, to you…”_

The chief, whose name was Marlesse de la Mer, walked down the promenade in the direction of the song. Then she ran. Her mind reeled with panic and joy and bewilderment; her purchase was, for the moment, forgotten. And when she caught up to the source of the song, Marlesse yelled, “Moonie? Cress Moonie? Saints and stars—how?”

The woman before her turned around. Anyone could have picked Cress Moonie out from a crowd: she had a scar, a battlefield of paleness, of tight, pockmarked skin extending from her hairless scalp across her right eye and over her lips. Her nose, too, was terribly crooked. But a sincere smile tends to overwrite every other trait, and, reader...

Imagine the smile of the person you trust the most in this world. Imagine their warmth, their open delight at seeing you: Cress Moonie had that.

So Marlesse wept, openly, loudly, there on the promenade. She wept until she could not breathe, until her consciousness had gone blank with everything except terrible wonder. 

You must understand why. She now knew that Operator Moonie had survived an old mission—one that Marlesse thought only she herself had survived, back in the horror of her military years. The chief couldn't comprehend how Cress stood before her now, but she quickly decided it didn’t matter.

It was like dreaming vividly of her mother’s ghost, and then waking up in her mother’s arms, safe and warm and in awe of the fragile line between life and death.

Cress hugged the chief. The scarred woman smelled of rain. 

After Marlesse calmed, hooking her awareness back from the memory of war and terror, the two sat on the edge of a fountain watching the river.

“I’ve been in the mists, silly. Healing. Thinking. Well...until recently. I’ve been traveling more,” Cress said, in her heavily accented Althussian. She was a special kind of mercenary who had come from somewhere near the Brightest Sovereignty and its territories—Marlesse couldn’t remember where, precisely. Cress Moonie wasn’t even her real name: it was a nickname from a codename, or something like that.

“Oh—are you still practicing the rituals?” Marlesse asked. “The water spirits and all that?”

“My kind of...ritual...isn’t something I can give up,” Cress replied, grinning. Then she sighed. It was very wistful. Even now, in what Marlesse assumed was her forties, she had all the charm of a young girl. “I haven’t been honest with you, my cub—not then, not now—and I’m sorry. I need to tell you something—”

“I don’t remember you ever lying to me, Moonie.”

“Oh. Well. You wouldn’t remember if it was a very good lie, now would you?”

“Maybe not, although I can hardly remember what I’ve eaten for breakfast sometimes. I will, however, forever hold in my heart one very important thing.”

“What’s that?”

“That you apologized to me just now.”

Behind them water trickled through the fountain, and in front of them the river spun onward, and the morning mist had turned into a light rain. Yet it seemed like Marlesse had only ever lived in that moment, and that her friendship with her old comrade had never been anything but this, but sincere apologies on a promenade.

This is a story about memory.

This is a story about time.

**Author's Note:**

> Please be sure to leave a comment or a kudos or bookmark the piece if you enjoyed it! ❤️
> 
> ✨ [[see the full SecStar timeline](https://secondstarfall.com/index.php/Official_Timeline) | [check out the SecStar wiki](https://secondstarfall.com/)] ✨
> 
>  **AUTHOR'S COMMENTARY:** Marlesse is a big sister figure to a lot of people, including her actual brothers. I wanted her to have someone to rely on, as well. Enter Cress Moonie.
> 
> No, it's not a mistake that I listed Kirra Lattar as one of the characters in this piece. We may yet have a lot of story to tell. 
> 
> :o)


End file.
